Yet another gun death

Seattlest hopes that the mayor is paying a lot of attention at the gun control summit he's attending right now in New York. Greg, you're not on vacation. Nickels and a dozen other mayors are meeting with Bloomberg in NYC to share notes and listen to a few gun control experts. It sounds like Seattle's big contribution will be the idea of a regional database of gun dealers. Databases, as you intrinsically know as a Seattle resident, can solve anything.

Hurry back with your fancy database, though, Greg, before we all shoot the town into swiss cheese. Another gun related death was reported last night, this time on Capitol Hill. The Seattle Times says the guy was trying to sell a gun on the Hill last night when residents phoned 911 and police arrived. They did their "freeze!" bit and everyone started shooting. No police were injured.

Initial reports claim the man was discharging the weapon possibly in a building or in the street before the police arrived on the scene, but the Times makes it seem like he was less 'wild gunman on the loose' than regular guy:

Tanya Moore, 26, said that minutes before the shooting she hugged the man, whom she met through friends about eight months ago, and walked away.

She said he's in his late teens and has a girlfriend, who is expecting a baby. She said he didn't always carry a firearm but had it with him tonight because he hoped to sell it for money to help his girlfriend.

Moore confirmed the man waved the gun around earlier in the night but didn't do so in a threatening manner.

Note to Tanya: There isn't really a way to wave a gun around in a nonthreatening manner. It's a handgun. In the immortal words of Witness it's for "the shooting of men." You could hold it between your thumb and middle finger with your pinky fully extended while repeating, "eww, eww, eww," and it would still be threatening and when the cops told you to "freeze!" followed by "drop the gun!" you could still expect to get shot.